


Precious as Pearls

by Ariss_Tenoh



Category: The Lions of Al-Rassan - Guy Gavriel Kay
Genre: Alternate Universe, Complete, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-27
Updated: 2013-12-27
Packaged: 2018-01-06 08:53:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1104875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ariss_Tenoh/pseuds/Ariss_Tenoh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"We were fated to meet. To fiercely love one another. But not to remain together."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Precious as Pearls

They had set eyes on one another for the first time in the Courtyard of the Streams in Ragosa's palace. Poets would say it was a fitting place for two legends to meet but to Rodrigo Belmonte... it was not that incident when his heart was stolen and never returned.....

 

..... They were riding outside the walls of Ragosa, riding hard and long. The nervous energy in the riders and the horses burnt away like the ground flying from beneath their mounts' hooves. Rodrigo admired the other's seat, a true Asharite if one were to judge such a thing from the ability to ride alone. They gradually slowed their pace as they came nearer to Lake Serrana. The sun beat hot and heavy from above and sweat dripped from Rodrigo's forehead. He wiped it with the back of his hand.

 

"That was a good race. You are truly a child of the desert," he ventured.

 

His riding companion threw her head and laughed. A melodious, joy-filled sound that warmed Rodrigo's heart in a way the orb in the sky could not. 

 

"Flattery, Captain? I would not expect it from a dedicated soldier." Laughter danced in her blue eyes, an unusual colour for an Asharite, and she seemed to lean toward him ever so slightly.

 

"Only praise given where it's due." He inclined his head in an imitation of a king-like nod. She laughed again, willing to be amused by his poor attempts at courting her, and he found that he wished he could make her laugh more often. Rodrigo remembered the first time he laid eyes on her. The most celebrated poet in the land seeking refuge in the King of Ragosa's court......

 

_Those in the court all watched the Lady Zabira's handmaiden for she did not show the proper respect or humility of a servant and commoner. Rodrigo Belmonte of Valledo knew her from the single pearl in her right ear, a pearl worth a king's ransom if that. The black robes gave her an austere and solemn quality, which lasted only till one looked at the woman's eyes and saw the fierce spirit and intelligence there. As if aware of being stared at, she turned to meet his gaze. Boldly and without hesitation._

_So this was the one they called the Pearl of Al-Rassan. Amira Ibnat Khairan, famed throughout the peninsula for being a poet without peer, diplomat and strategist, advisor to the King of Cartada, and a skilled swordswoman in her own right. Only the courts of Al-Rassan could breed a woman like that, or so the whispers said. He admired beauty and courage in a woman; after all he had been married to such a woman for almost sixteen years. But there was something else to this Asharite woman, a quality that transcended the constraints of her frail female body. It took something special for a woman who was suspected of killing the last Khalif of Al-Rassan, and who had killed Almalik of Cartada, to appear thus in the court of another king._

 

......... They dismounted and tethered their horses to a nearby tree. He offered his companion water and she accepted. 

 

"Winter will be here soon and snow will cover the land. This lake will freeze and its waters will dance no more under the breeze." Amira Ibnat Khairan stared across Lake Serrana. Sweat and dust spoiled her hair and clothing, yet the wistfulness in her voice lent her a strange beauty.

 

"Spring will come again, Amira," Rodrigo said, standing beside her and also looking at the expanse of water though aware that neither of them were speaking of such a trivial matter as the weather. "Spring will come, the land will be green and flowers will bloom again. And perhaps you will find a man brave enough to ask for your hand." 

 

Amira's head lowered in a rare moment of feminine shyness. Rodrigo couldn't believe this was the same woman who stood shoulder to shoulder with him facing savage Karsh mercenaries. 

 

"I have yet to meet a man worthy for me to bear him sons." Her blue eyes met his, unspoken words glittering in their depths.

 

Silence tied them together, as though spellbound, like that fateful day at the Palace. Rodrigo wished he could cleave himself in two; he was discovering it was possible to be passionately, madly, in love with two extraordinary women at once. And he cursed himself for a fool................

 

......... Jehane Bet Ishak watched her friend dress for the night of the Carnival. She herself was unsure whether to accept Mazur Ben Avren's gift.

 

"Is that his gift? An owl mask? He does you honour."

 

Jehane looked up from the mask she held in her hands. Her friend looked beautiful in a dark gold robe edged in black thread. "I thought he would be courting you, Amira."

 

Amira raised one eyebrow in a gesture of feigned surprise. "Me? Surely not! The Prince of the Kindath would be a more suitable match for you. Even your mother would approve, Jehane."

 

She blushed and retorted, "You frightened him with that sword display so you can't blame the man if he decided I was the safer option." What was she saying? Did she really want to be the focus of Ben Avren's attentions? Jehane wasn't so certain, save that she hated to be seen as inferior to any one.

 

The room which the two women shared was silent save for the rustling of silks and tinkling of jewellery. Jehane thought back to that day, the day Amira declared she would like to be bought. Only with the same amount of coin paid for the Valledan captain. The uproar in King Badir's court was like the crash of thunder and the proposal thrown by one of the mercenaries was so preposterous no one could even entertain it. It had been doubly shocking when neither Amira Ibnat Khairan nor Rodrigo Belmonte objected to fighting against five mercenaries to prove the Asharite woman's worth, or perhaps it was more telling that Rodrigo thought it acceptable to risk his life alongside a woman he had only met. Yet they had won that day at the arena, barely, and the crowds cheered wildly. Jehane would always remember the two figures standing in the arena's blood splattered sand with flowers and gold coins and wine raining upon them like blessings from the Gods. 

 

"Do you still hate me, Jehane?" It was asked in a soft voice, almost a whisper.

 

Jehane blinked and focused on Amira, realising that the woman had finished combing her long wavy hair. She spent a heartbeat admiring the way the candlelight shone on Amira's hair before replying, "I never hated you. Perhaps I was envious in the beginning of your beauty and of your fame."

 

For the first time since she knew Amira, the woman looked sad as she smiled and gazed at her own mask. "And what has that fame brought me, Jehane? I will not be remembered for my verses, but for the kings I killed. Will that be how history speaks of me? A whore and a murderess?"

 

"That's not true!" Jehane stood from her perch on the bed. "No one who knows you would believe such a thing. I don't believe it and Rodrigo doesn't."

 

The difference between the two women, Kindath and Asharite, physician and poet, commoner and courtesan, was never so great as in that instant. Amira gazed at Jehane and said nothing. Jehane wished there was something more she could say but words would not heal this woman's wounds, and Jehane cursed that there was nothing in her store of medicine to heal heartache.

 

"Amira, Rodrigo-"

 

"He is married and he loves his wife." Amira cut her off and then smiled; soft disappointment for what could not be. "Unfortunately." She secured her mask and said, "It's Carnival tonight. Don't stay in your room all night." And with those parting words, she left Jehane and closed the door behind her.

 

"If that is true, why are you wearing a mask with eagle feathers, Amira?" Jehane whispered alone to the room..............

 

................ It was over. Spring would come and with it the land will be nurtured in a sea of blood. Amira Ibnat Khairan stood beneath a night sky, a sea of stars above and not one star to guide her. She heard footsteps behind her and did not turn.

 

"Diego will be all right," the captain's voice came from just behind her shoulder.

 

"I am glad." Amira still did not face him. "I saw your wife. She is very beautiful."

 

"Amira, the Muwardis are coming. I have just been made constable of Valledo," he said as if the two subjects were related. 

 

"What would you have me say, Rodrigo?" Quietly spoken.

 

She was whirled around, her hair whipped about her face, and she found herself staring into his eyes.

 

_**"What would have me do?"**_ Desperation bled into his voice and she hated herself for forcing him into it.

 

"What you cannot do perhaps," she said. 

 

Her sorrow leeched the anger from him. 

 

"The Muwardis will come. There will be no place for you anywhere in the peninsula. You know it's true."

 

They stood in the night as though they were alone, while in reality there was a camp of men around them and the man's wife and two children somewhere in one of the camp's tents. Who said Jad horsemen could not be passionate? Amira smiled wryly. She placed a fingertip on Rodrigo's mouth to silence him. He gazed into her eyes and for one moment she saw it all, all the nights they would not share a bed, the days they would not share a meal, and all the laughter and tears of their unborn children. For a moment, just this moment, she mourned what could not be.

 

"You have a wife you love and two adoring sons. You have a king you've pledged your loyalty to and a war to win. I am nothing to you, Rodrigo. A memory of a winter in Ragosa, that is all."

 

He took her hand from his mouth and kissed the back of her it. The only kiss they shared.

 

"I wish you were a man," he said suddenly.

 

She laughed, one short loud sound, clear as a bell ringing in the night. Amira leaned into him, her hand still held in his and his other arm around her waist. She whispered as if confiding a secret, "If I were a man Rodrigo, I would have to kill you." 

 

Rodrigo's eyes widened but he allowed her to draw away and turned to watch her walk into the night, perhaps to find Jehane. If Amira had been born a man...... Ah, what a man she would have been! He grinned and shook his head. Perhaps it was fortunate she was not, he couldn't imagine how difficult it would be to handle Amira, or rather "Ammar", if that were true. They would probably spend all their time competing in everything, from swordsmanship to women to winning battles. He gazed into the night, at the path she'd taken and wished her safety in this uncertain world. He knew he would always remember the way she looked tonight, the sparkle of love in her eyes and the courage of her heart. Rodrigo didn't know it was the last time he'd set eyes on her, for in the morning she had left the camp with Jehane and Alvar.................

 

 

_~Twenty years later~_

 

Miranda Belmonte d'Alveda held the letter in her hand and wanted to weep. All these years and to find her suspicions were true. The letter had no seal and no signature but the identity of the writer couldn't be disputed. Not when she knew Rodrigo kept a box, a plain wooden box with a pattern of Ashar's holy stars delicately carved on its lid, filled with poems written in a beautiful cursive handwriting. She knew a poem, filling one-page of parchment, was sent every year on the date of Rodrigo's victory over the Muwardis' leader. He never spoke of it and she never asked, yet she noticed he always grew anxious and tense if the poem was late in arriving in any year. 

 

This year, there were two letters. One delivered to her husband and the other to her. She was certain Rodrigo didn't know of it and she would not tell him. The letter was short and to the point.

 

_'Lady Miranda, we have never spoken and I dare say we would not find much to speak of were we to attempt it. Save that we both love the same man.'_ Miranda's hand nearly crumpled the letter, it said **love** not **loved** , and she knew this poet chose words with care. _'I enclose these lines to you. None of us grow younger with every passing year. These lines are for that day which we both dread. I beg you will remember them then.'_

 

Lines for a poem, an elegy for a hero. For one coming day.

 

She wished she could hate this woman; she really did. But the woman had saved Rodrigo's life and Diego's, doubly damning in a way because Miranda owed her a debt that could never be repaid. She folded the letter and hid it where no one would look. No, she couldn't hate the woman. She could only thank Jad she'd met Rodrigo before Ibnat Khairan had.

 

Lady Miranda, wife to the Hero of Esperana, and mother to the constable and chancellor of their united lands left her private rooms and walked to the gardens of their manor. To the gardens modelled after those in the lost Al-Rassan, where her husband and sons sat around a fountain and laughed and admired her first grandchild.

 

~ End ~

**Author's Note:**

> Written on April 22 2010.


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